Subtitled movie of the speech hold by Executive Director of the EEA Jacqueline McGlade during the presentation of the 4th pan-European assessment at the UNECE 6th Мinisterial Conference "Environment for Europe", in Belgrade, 10th of October 2007.

2010 will be a major milestone for biodiversity policy both in the EU and globally. It will be the year of the full evaluation of the delivery to the EU Biodiversity Action Plan and as well the UN International Year for Biodiversity.

Today the European Union has the most environmentally friendly arsenal of rules in the world and has done more to tackle pressing ecological problems, such as climate change, than any other major power.
But it has not always been like this. Caring for the environment did not feature in the Treaty of Rome, the document that gave birth to the modern day EU. Yet environmental problems were never far away. Europe’s love affair with the car was moving into top gear, industry was busy belching out pollutants and raw sewage was being pumped into our rivers and seas.

42% of Europe’s native mammals are threatened with extinction, 43% of birds, 45% of butterflies, 52% of freshwater fish. The list goes on and makes terrifying reading. Worldwide, the loss of species is even more alarming.

Europe is a continent of breathtaking natural beauty and dramatic contrasts. The EU’s 27 Member States stretch from the frozen Arctic Circle in the north to the warm Mediterranean waters in the south. From the wave-lashed Atlantic coast in Ireland to the snow-capped Carpathian mountains in Romania, the EU includes a vast range of natural habitats and a great diversity of flora and fauna.
Our natural heritage includes several thousand types of habitat, 520 species of bird, 10 000 plant species and at least 100 000 species of invertebrate. Yet, in comparison with other regions in the world, these numbers are relatively modest. Europe is the most urbanized and densely populated continent in the world. It is also one of the most polluted. These factors have taken their toll on the natural environment.

This report assesses farmland, forests, freshwater
ecosystems, marine and coastal systems, wetlands of
international importance and mountain ecosystems
in order to provide evidence of progress — or lack
of progress — towards the 2010 target of halting the
loss of biodiversity.

This report presents a first indicator-based assessment of Europe's progress towards its target of halting biodiversity loss by 2010. The Streamlining European 2010 Biodiversity Indicators (SEBI 2010) process was set up to streamline national, regional and global indicators and, crucially, to develop a simple and workable set of indicators to measure progress and help reach the 2010 target.